Old Coins
The trolley was heavily laid down
with bags full of brass thruppenny bits (three-pence pieces), silver-coloured
sixpences, bronze pennies and two shillings — it was not easy to pull it along
in a busy high street even with a colleague pushing from the rear. At the same
time as pushing and pulling, both of us kept checking that no bags or coins
fell on the way. That day, we were taking the money to a competitor’s bank
which was running low on its supply of hard cash.
Back in the 1960s, a one-penny coin measured 31
millimetres in diameter and weighed 10 grams. Before we decimalised in 1971,
twelve pennies (12 pence) made up a shilling, and twenty shillings made a
pound. Hence 240 pence was the equivalent in monetary value of a one-pound
banknote. There were no pound coins then, pound coins were not introduced in
this country until 1983. Each of our 1960's cloth bags held the worth of five
pounds, that's the equivalent of 1,200 pennies, or, in weight: 12 kilograms —
the same as a dozen 2lb bags of sugar!
A trip to open up a small sub-office in the
morning involved having a large suitcase of cash double-strapped to one wrist,
while in our other hand we held a bank truncheon (a rounded heavy stick) to
stave off attackers. We’d frequently travel in a local taxi where our usual
driver, a portly gentleman I recall, would drive us very slowly while he smoked
his pipe. We’d telephone the main branch to report we had arrived safely at our
destination – having survived both attackers and the smoke!
Everyday use for coins back then was to feed a
pay-as-you-go gas meter built into many homes. Most of these locked metal boxes
were fed with shillings, and so it was essential to keep a well-stocked supply
of these coins at home to ensure the heating stayed on. These meters would be
emptied regularly and it was customary for people to buy-back from their
meter-man (only men held that job in our area) the same set of coins they would
empty, for re-use. Some would have been older, special specimens set aside to
keep, but when the lights went out any coin would do in the rush to restore
power. Sometimes on collection day the coins were exchanged for banknotes by
mistake.
Ultimately coin bags of meter shillings would be
paid in over the sub-office counter. As a cashier in the 1960’s I was then able
to discover shillings dating back to the new coinage (1816-1820) of George
third and those of Queen Victoria struck with ‘young head’ ‘jubilee head’ or
‘veiled head’.
There were Florins to be found of Edward VII,
one pictured below, depicting Britannia standing - turned half-right towards us
- holding an upright trident with an oval-shaped shield displaying the Union
Jack, with the choppy waves of the sea behind her. She wears a Roman crested
helmet, and her cloak stands out as if windswept.
A Florin of Edward
VII
They say the model for Britannia was Lady Susan
Hicks-Beach, the second daughter of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir
Michael Hicks-Beach. The legend on this coin, dated on the ship’s prow 1903, is
‘ONE FLORIN TWO SHILLINGS’. To my mind, this coin by G.W. De Saulles is a
beautiful piece of art which epitomizes the elegance of the Edwardian age.
Britannia, modelled
by Lady Susan Hicks-Beach.
The collecting of old money really began, when
in 1966, a young bank cashier became attracted to the coins in the till.
G K
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